Biography and Memoir reviews
One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995 by Helen Garner
This is the second volume of Helen Garner’s Diaries to be published and covers the years 1987–1995. The Helen in these entries is more mature, more established, and perhaps not as happy. Professional…
Group by Christie Tate
Christie Tate, by most objective measures, is a success. She’s graduating top of her class from law school and is well on her way to a high-powered career. But underneath her veneer of control lies a…
Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel
On the 4th February 2013, two-time Booker Prize–winner Hilary Mantel gave a speech at the British Museum for a London Review of Books event. The speech was entitled ‘Royal Bodies: From Anne Boleyn to…
Only Happiness Here by Gabrielle Carey
‘I think I’ve so got into the habit of being happy inside and quite secretly …’ So wrote Elizabeth von Armin in her diary, in the year before her death, according to Gabrielle Carey in her new memoir…
Unseen by Jacinta Parsons
About 9.5 million Australians live with a chronic illness. Many of these conditions are not outwardly visible, so symptoms and side effects are often experienced by sufferers in solitude.
Unseen is …
Show Me Where It Hurts by Kylie Maslen
In Kylie Maslen’s generous debut collection of essays, Show Me Where It Hurts, she invites the reader into her experience of chronic pain. Hers, not anyone – or everyone – else’s: ‘I only hope that o…
Hysteria by Katerina Bryant
I’m an avid reader of Australian debut writing, especially from younger authors. If you haven’t heard of it, Voiceworks is a literary journal produced by and for writers and artists under twenty-five…
Into the Suburbs: A Migrant’s Story by Christopher Raja
Personal stories of migration to Australia always break my heart a little. It is within these affecting portraits of someone’s life that we see an Australia that is racist, classist and so arrogant. …
Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
This book by a young Irish teenager is an extraordinarily beautiful seasonal diary of observing and appreciating nature, teeming with stunning descriptions of the natural world. As he observes the ch…
The Details by Tegan Bennett Daylight
Reading a book written about reading books involves a certain doubled type of readerly attention and produces an equally doubled readerly experience. That is, you have to keep track of at least two r…
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